Elizabeth Jo

So here's what it says.

Right.

Sounds like it just described something about the states.

You know, I think any smart high school student would say, well, that doesn't do anything, right?

But the Supreme Court has actually interpreted the Tenth Amendment to impose a limit on the federal government.

And the Supreme Court has changed its interpretation of the Tenth Amendment over time.

But since the 1990s, it's very clear that the states can rely on the Tenth Amendment to argue that the federal government has violated a state's rights of sovereignty.

So here the Supreme Court isn't actually relying on the text of the Tenth Amendment because it really couldn't, right?

But more that the Tenth Amendment embodies a particular idea of federalism and that the Supreme Court interprets that idea as a limit on federal power.

Okay.

So the primary way the court has interpreted the Tenth Amendment, again, not because the text says so, but because the Supreme Court says this stands in for a certain idea of federalism, is what the court has called the anti-commandeering doctrine.

And again, that word is not in the Tenth Amendment, but it's how the Supreme Court has interpreted the Tenth Amendment.

And so the idea of anti-commandeering is like this.

The federal government can't commandeer or order—that's what commandeering means—the states to enact a federal regulatory program, and it can't force state officials to enforce federal laws.

Right.

So the idea is the federal government can't tell the states, look, we have these things we want to do and we want you to pass laws or regulations the way we want you to.

Nor can the federal government tell state and local officials, let's say we don't have the resources for our own officials to enforce federal law.

You have to do it.

So since the 1990s, the Supreme Court's made it absolutely clear that this kind of action is unconstitutional.

Why?